Honduras Coup, Act IV, Day 7

Update3: The decree the Honduran coup is imposing is available here. To ensure the rights of people, they are taking away their God-given rights. Since the Honduran Constitution allows the suspension of Articles 69, 71, 72, 78, 81, 84, 93, 99, and 103 in the case of something, like, say, invasion, they are gonna be nice and not suspend 71, 93, 99, and 103. Today, that is. And, even though nothing gives them the right to do so: there will be curfews, no public meetings are allowed (that will put a crimp on soccer games), and it’s forbidden to write or broadcast anything that offends public officials. Anyone suspicious may be arrested. They will be breaking up sit-ins. It’s signed by a bunch of wannabees.

Welcome to Occupied France ca. 1943.

The coupistas continue to show their dedication to liberty and the culture of life by threatening Father Ismael Moreno, who runs Radio Progreso, with death (Honduras en Lucha via HondurasOye).
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Update2:
Channel 36 says: The coup is planning to close Channel 36 and Radio Globo by legislative–or more correctly, executive decree. Andres Pavon says this is a cowardly act. On Radio Globo: The executive decree pretends to give the authorities the right to arrest people on mere suspicion, to suspend media for “offending the human dignity of government officials” or urging illegal activity, and other “rights” that are clearly acts of a dictatorship. A number of lawyers will challenge this in the Supreme Court tomorrow. “Sunday is a good day for crime.” They say Channel 36 is off the air. A woman called Micheletti “Goriletti” and they cut her off, saying “please don’t offend.” So the censorship is already effective. Minors of age held by police in Colon.

The first woman to die as the result of golpista repression, Wendy Elizabeth Avila, was overcome by the gases emitted by the golpista authorities yesterday. She went to the hospital and died today of pneumonia….A Telesur team is reporting some journalists were run over by a military vehicle.

Vos el Soberano says that the Constitutional articles being suspended by the pretend-President are 69, 72, 78, and 84. That would be
69: You can’t arrest someone without a reason or hold them indefinitely
72: There is to be no prior censorship of the press, and any abuse of the press is to be tried by law
78: People can meet as long as they don’t endanger public order and “good customs.”
84: You can’t arrest someone except for violating the law and on the order of a competent legal authority

Channel 36 is playing a claymation? cartoon about Jesus with captions like: “Cartoons and not the truth is what Micheletti wants you to see.” This is good. They are figuring out that that the way to defeat dictatorships is with laughter. The cartoon is pretty good, too. The temptation of Jesus seems particularly apt.

On TeleSur, a journalist who was run over by the military said it was a hit and run
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Update: Channel 36 says that the dictatorship has refused entrance to the OAS delegation. Three Spaniards, one Colombian, and one American have been deported from Honduras. Felix from Radio Globo calls the deportation of the diplomats, apparently in retaliation for deporting Bianca Micheletti “suicidal.”

Laura Carlsen, in an extensive post on the attack on the Brazilian embassy:

Numerous reports, including Honduran News Network sources, also mentioned the use of radioactive cesium. If the use of radioactive cesium is confirmed, the consequences are very serious. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry finds that the effects of high levels include the symptoms listed above and even coma and death.

This is the notorious “day-after” effect of nuclear bombs. The agency adds that “it is reasonable to expect that individuals exposed to high levels of radiation from a source of radioactive cesium will develop the same types of cancer observed in survivors of the atomic bombs in Japan.”

Edmundo Arellano, former Defense Minister of Honduras and a Constitutional Law Scholar has published an important piece here.

Curfew from 9PM to 5AM throughout the country.

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I’m concerned because the Honduras Embassy website is offline and has been for perhaps 24 hours. When I try to log on, it attempts to load, stops, and then starts again. [Added 5:45PM. Now up.]

The full text of the insane “cadena nacional” (national broadcast) still eludes me, but pieces are found in the various papers (paragraphs may not be sequential).

The Presidency of the Republic communicates to the Honduran people that to guarantee the peace and public order, and due to the calls to insurrection made in a public manner by Mr. Manuel Zelaya Rosales, decided to establish a curfew in the entire nation from 6PM to 6AM
–Tiempo

We again ask the government of Brazil to define the status of Mr. Zelaya within a period no longer than ten days. If they do not do this, we see ourselves obliged to take additional measures according to international law.

We ask the government of Brazil that it immediately take steps to ensure that Mr. Zelaya cease to use the protection offered by the diplomatic mission of Brazil to instigate violence in Honduras.

No country can tolerate that a foreign embassy be used as a command base to generate violence and break the tranquility, as Mr. Zelaya has been doing in our country since his incursion into the national territory.

[from a second statement read at the same time] The Government of the [Honduran] Republic will not receive the diplomatic agents of such countries [which left Honduras as part of breaking relations, such as Argentina, Spain, Mexico, and Venezuela] unless their respective governments begin to negotiate the re-establishment of the same with the (Foreign Affairs) Chancellory of the Republic. –Reuters

Reuters also says that the pretend-government demanded that the representatives of the named countries hand over their credentials and remove all insignia from their embassies.

Having listened to hours and hours and hours of Zelaya droning on about the need for peaceful resistance and negotiated settlement on a minor radio channel that the government sabotages half the time, and especially having watched this pretend-government apparently attempt to gas the entire staff of the embassy with lethal hydrogen cyanide, this sounds completely paranoid and insane.

(2:40PM Eastern) On Channel 36, Lula says that they do not accept any ultimatum delivered by a coupista government. The coupistas should leave the presidential palace. He said that if they enter the Brazilian embassy, they will have violated all international norms. Concern about the arrival of an OAS mission at Tocontin. They have been detained and are not being allowed to proceed. Micheletti’s daughter Bianca got deported from the US, where she had worked at the Honduran embassy (in New York).

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9 Responses to “Honduras Coup, Act IV, Day 7”

There have been a number of really bizarre ‘cadena nacional’ broadcasts this week. My ‘favorite ” was on Wednesday at about 1 pm during the hours the curfew was lifted. The announced insisted there’s enough gas in Tegucigalpa, there are 14 days of food in the supermarkets, enough grain for 6 months, and the borders are open. The economy is stabilizing. The arms and soldiers will protect those going out to buy. The businesses are in solidarity; once this was said because they were open; a bit later in the announcements it noted their solidarity with the curfew.
But the best was yet to come. After the announcement, Radio Emaús, the diocesan radio station here in Santa Rosa, played a song – I wish I had all the lyrics – but the refrain went something like, “For the poor there is prison, but for the rich…”
Oh for more of that type of humor!

This particular cadena went beyond the usual counterfactual statements of the coup. They were implicitly threatening countries that could wipe their military out without breaking a sweat. For example, the statement, “No country can tolerate that a foreign embassy be used as a command base to generate violence….” can be translated from diplospeak to, “If you don’t stop Zelaya from speaking out, we will attack your embassy.” The statement, “If they do not [“define” the status of Zelaya], we see ourselves obliged to take additional measures…” Since they have already gassed the entire staff with a toxic substance, that’s a death threat.

Thanks, Brother John… I heard similar information on Radio Globo, but can’t process it. They said that there were 4 articles, I believe. One of them said they couldn’t broadcast anything that might offend the human dignity of public officials or advocate illegal acts. Others suspended probable cause for arrest and allowed the police to hold people indefinitely on suspicion. It’s all the stuff of dictatorships, all completely illegal under international law and all very likely to trigger a civil war.

I think the Honduran people should all be nominated for sainthood simply for holding off violence this long.

I heard articles 69 and 84 in addition to what are probably the two you cite. 69 is ” Personal liberty may not be violated and only in accordance with the laws may it be restricted or suspended temporarily.” 84 says, among other things “No one may be arrested or detained except by written order from a competent authority, carried out with the legal formalities and for a reason previously established in the Law…. he [the arrested or detained] must be permitted to communicate his detention to a relative or a person of his choice.”

Dictatorships like to do away with these things because it allows them to hold people indefinitely and without charge, terrorizing their relatives by the simple act of not telling them that their loved one is alive.

BTW, Brother John, did you hear the report on Radio Progreso yesterday, ca. 3:30 Honduras time, about a gas dispersed by helicopter over Colonia Tres Caminos?